The Interstate Highway Sytem, Wonder of the World?

I have always been a great admirer of the interstate highway system in the USA. I would go so far as to say it is one of the wonders of the modern world, and one day in the future, long after we have run out of oil, it will be admired by people from who travel to the USA (in oxcarts) just to walk along sections of this system, in awe of what primitive peoples had accomplished.

This system of roads was built mostly after World War 2, and it is the biggest public works project in the history of the world. President Eisenhower introduced the bill and it was passed in 1956, called the "Federal Aid Highway Act". There was not much debate on this bill, at least not by today's norms. For example, almost nobody complained about the debt load that the government was taking on. Also, very few people were made aware ahead of time that the government was going to decide exactly where the roads went, and that many towns would die as a result of being bypassed by the opening of the new roads. No one understood that there would be what you could even call a "Death Panel" that would make decisions about which towns would be served, and which would not. And there was literally no debate about whether illegal aliens would be able to drive their cars on this road system undetected. Also, many trucks would be scrapped if they did not conform to the standard height and length determined by the federal bureaucrats. But more than that, it was never once mentioned that Hitler had basically invented the idea of a national highways system, called the Autobahn, and Eisenhower was so impressed with it as he travelled through Germany, that he decided that the USA should build it's own.

Why did no-one ever question the Federal Highway Act before it was passed? Why did nobody threaten to filibuster it? Why did nobody call it socialism? Well for one thing, the big carmakers were lobbying for it. Lots of people were going to get jobs from it, even though those were Government jobs, not private sector. And even though the jobs were just temporary, until the roads were completed.

Looking back on the "Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways" as it was officially named, nobody, even today, ever comments on it negatively. And yet it has led to a huge increase in oil consumption, to the point that the USA is no longer self sufficient in oil. It led to the dismantling of some of the national railway system, which is a far more fuel efficient way to transport goods long distances. And thousands of people have died in traffic accidents on it.

But what I like about it is that it allows me to travel great distances by car or motorcycle, assured of being able to find gas stations, restaurants and motels along the way. In fact the only real complaints I hear about it are that it prevents people from seeing the "real" America as they travel around. Which is actually similar to the argument if you take the plane from NY to LA. Of course it's true, but if you really want to see America, just get off the road. Any time, any where.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_highway_system

Footnote for Canada. Yay for us! Canada has a smaller freeway system than the USA, but it is busier. Specifically on the 401 through Toronto, the average daily traffic flow is 425,000 (measured in 2004). While the busiest on the Interstate System in the USA is 390,000 vehicles per day: I-405 in Los Angeles, California, (estimated in 2006) Highway 401 has 12-20 lanes through Pickering to Mississauga and this is thought to be the world's longest continuous stretch of highway having 12 or more lanes.

In contrast to the US system, this particular Canadian highway is actually an obstacle to traffic movement, and it is amazing to me that people keep using it in spite of the frequent slowdowns, even at 3:00 AM.

http://www.urbanplanet.org/forums/topic/11058-Torontos-401-Busiest-Freeway-North/


Picture: Me and the BMW on Interstate 10 New Mexico. Returning from my trip to Baja Mexico. I know I should not be fiddling with my camera while driving, but I had slowed down to 100 kph, to take a picture of the two bikes ahead of me.

Why CUSO Was Not a Missionary Organization

When I went with CUSO, some of my friends and relatives were puzzled about why I would want to become a missionary to Africa. After all, I had not seemed overly religious to them. The answer is that CUSO is not a religious missionary society. It is a secular organization (Another word that is often confused. It means NOT religious). It does not mean that religious people are not admitted, just that CUSO's philosophy is not connected to any one single religious view.

CUSO was built on some liberal values that were more widespread in the sixties. Just a note that I am no longer with CUSO, this is just my understanding of CUSO's philosophies forty years ago. I can't find a current or even an old official declaration, but anyway here were some things we assumed as the truth.

First that all races of man were equal, and women too, even though this was pre-womens' lib.

Second that it was possible to eliminate such things as poverty, starvation, war, overpopulation. We didn't know exactly how, but some basic approaches might include education, diplomacy, empathy, fair trade practices, modern science.

Third was respect for local culture. Languages, religions, and customs.

Fourth would be the attempt of CUSO volunteers to live at the standards of their African counterparts. We did not approve of CUSO volunteers putting on ostentatious displays of wealth, such as driving around in limos, or living in air conditioned mansions surrounded by barbed wire. Although we earned the same salary as local teachers, it turned out we were still richer, because they generally had to support a large extended family, while our families back in Canada could manage without our support. So that's how I could afford a cook, and a smallish motorcycle, which African teachers could not. The rest of our living standard was not too far above the African teachers, although we always had a refrigerator.

CUSO did not believe that the evil in the world was the work of satan, or witchcraft or voodoo magic. No CUSO volunteer I ever heard of ever did any religious proselytising of any sort while in Africa. Although some of my friends in Africa became religious when they returned home. (Actually now that I think of it, those were mostly Peace Corps volunteers, i.e. Americans.)

One of the first projects by CUSO was to send Canadians overseas to newly independent developing countries to help fill in where they were short of trained people, starting with teachers and medical staff. When I first arrived at my high school in Sierra Leone, they were short staffed. Many classes had to teach themselves, and I had the pick of which classes I wanted to teach. When I left three years later, there were no more teacherless classes, and I had already turned over my senior classes to new graduates of Sierra Leone's college, and moved down to some of the Junior classes. At the time, Sierra Leone had been independent of the British Empire only 6 years.

Now to contrast with the religious missionaries in Africa, of which there is a much broader spectrum of beliefs and practices. They generally saw their primary job as bringing their religion to the natives. So right from the start, their philosophy was opposite of CUSO. CUSO did not promote our culture or religions as being superior. Also, I don't know that any church groups believed in the possibility of eliminating poverty world wide.

The next thing I noticed about missionary work is that it was generally some sort of charity. CUSO was far more likely to send someone to work at a local government run institution, rather than set up their own school. As far as I know, CUSO never set up any schools or hospitals, while missionary groups had plenty, plus orphanages and clinics that they ran themselves.

And of course another major difference was that CUSO did not believe in the Devil or magic or superstition. Not officially anyway, but as I said, I never met a CUSO volunteer who claimed to believe in those things while I was in Africa.

Was the liberal, secular philosophy of CUSO proved right in the end? Whatever CUSO did, Africa did decline in the forty years after I went there. Now I believe there are even more missionaries than ever before. Children are being killed for witchcraft. Even the Catholic Church has said they are going to start fighting witchcraft and devil possessions with prayer and exorcisms of their own. What I mean is they recently have officially acknowledged that these things exist.

I don't think it means CUSO was wrong, just that the problem is more difficult than imagined. We have found, for example, that the damage done by racial abuse lasts for generations after the abuse stops. And on the other hand, amoral profit-driven corporations have increased their power in the last 40 years. Just look at the huge personal bonuses the banks took from the bail-out money in the USA. If the United States of America can have it's economy destroyed by multinational corporations, imagine how much easier the corporations can leave a small country destitute such as Sierra Leone.

The religious end-of-the-world people have not been proven right either. Not yet anyway.

Show Some Respect When Travelling Abroad

Last night, I was looking through many pictures and snapshots that you can find on the internet. I was looking in particular for pictures of Sierra Leone, wondering what it looks like today. I came across a comment that struck me as being kind of insensitive. A young university student from Tennessee was in Sierra Leone working, and had taken some pictures of billboards in Freetown. One billboard was partly in "Krio" which is the word used for Creole, or the language that the freed slaves used. Her comment about the billboard was that it was written in Krio which is "Basically, bad English."

Before I go on, I'm going to just address that comment with my own take. Of course, it is rude to insult the way other people speak. But this comment also displays a lack of knowledge in both language and history. All languages started out as "bad" something else. French, Spanish and Italian are all bad Latin. English started out as bad French mixed with bad Germanic/Scandinavian. American English is bad British English. Same for Canadian English (but not quite as bad of course!). And Southern American English, for y'alls information, is bad Yankee English.

Now some history. The reason the Freetown Colony spoke Krio, is that they were freed slaves. But they were not freed in their own country, they were freed together with other people from different tribes that could not understand each other languages. The only way they could communicate with each other was with a new common language they made up for themselves, and this language was Krio, and based heavily (but not entirely) on English.

They also had not been given the benefit of formal English classes by their slave masters, although possibly the first ones that came from Canada may have been able to read and write. That's because Canada didn't make writing and reading a punishable offense for black people, like the southern USA did at the time.

Now to get back to language. Krio is actually not just "bad English" because it is now a written language. Meaning it has a defined syntax, spelling, and there are books published in Krio.

Now that I have dealt with that one innocent comment from a young woman visiting Sierra Leone, I want to continue with my feelings toward some people who travel and do not have respect for local people and cultures. I'm sure it's unintentional in most cases. But it seems to me when I was a CUSO volunteer we had a very strong sense of respecting the country we worked in. We were taught something of their history and culture and we were expected to learn it. The original motto of CUSO was "To serve and learn".

I went to the CUSO website to see if they had any guidelines on how volunteers from Canada should behave in foreign countries, but there was nothing. I guess it was just assumed that if you have to teach somebody how to respect a foreign culture, this person is not suitable for CUSO. I want to add that CUSO was completely unlike religious missionaries in that we did not go to eliminate local religion or cultures, we were a secular organization whose goal was more in eliminating poverty through education and infrastructure.

Some tourists are incredibly disrespectful of countries they visit whether intentional or not. They shout at people who do not understand their English (not even realizing that their English is actually non-standard), and look down on local people as lazy, ignorant, and dishonest.

I'm just going to wrap up with an anecdote from my trip to Mexico. I was talking to an American at the next campsite about travelling, he said he had never been out of the United States. Even though he was sitting in Mexico, a good 500 kilometers past the southern US border. Is this a common American attitude? I sometimes wonder from all the US flags I see flying on flagpoles in front of cottages in Canada. The only place you will not see this is on the St Claire river between Michigan and Ontario. There is not one single US flag flying on the Canadian side. I assume this not allowed because the Customs Agents don't want to confuse the boaters as to which side of the river is USA and which is Canada.

From Canada to Sierra Leone and Back

Canada and Sierra Leone occupy opposite ends of the United Nations quality of life scale, where Canada has occasionally ranked number one, and Sierra Leone has got the 192nd spot, or dead last a few times.

Sierra Leone and Canada are the only countries I have actually lived in. I was only in Sierra Leone for three years, but that included my first full time job, my first house, my first motor vehicle, the start of my passion for motorcycling, and getting married. Although Sierra Leone was poor when I was there, it was a beautiful country, with friendly people full of life and fun.

Listening to the Sierra Leone national anthem gives me the same feeling as listening to the Canadian national anthem. Although I would like to go back, I know I would be disappointed that it has not stayed the same as it was forty years ago.

I discovered to my surprise, that Sierra Leone's capital city Freetown was established by Canadian Settlers in 1792. They were Loyalist freed slaves who fought for the British during the American War of Independence, and subsequently were driven out and allowed to resettle in Nova Scotia. About 2000 of them were recruited in a mass exodus to the new British colony in Freetown, Sierra Leone. They were not actually the first to arrive, a small group of freed slaves had come from London England five years earlier, but had almost disappeared by the time the Canadian group arrived. They started the new colony which originally was just on the Freetown Peninsula. Fifteen years later, the British government declared the trans Atlantic slave trade illegal, and started seizing slave ships and unloading their human cargoes in Freetown, building up the population of the colony to the size of a small city.

Sierra Leone was also the first place I lived where English was the common official language. The original settlers spoke Creole, a form of English common among American slaves, which is still the common language of the Freetown Peninsula. Part of our orientation course was to learn Creole, and today I still remember the Creole greeting term "Ow de body?" which gives you an idea of how similar to English it is. However, it is just impossible for me to understand two people speaking Creole at full speed. While I was there I spoke English and usually muddled along. I did not actually live in a Creole speaking area, and so my native language speaking attempts were normally in Timne. Really all I wanted to do was to be able to greet people, and the rest seemed to take care of itself.

This incident shows how far even one word can get you. My first motorcycle trip after I got home was to Bo, 60 miles away. I knew that I would be entering the Mende language area somewhere along the way, and I learned the Mende Greeting which I think was Bua. Being new to motorcycling, the trip was a series of disasters, one of which was running out of gas half way there. I pushed the Honda to the next village, very hot work with the hills and gravel. I saw only mud huts and thatched roofs, so the usual thing of going to a gas station was not possible. A couple of curious village women approached me. I said Bua, and luckily they did too (because it is not marked where the language changes). They didn't actually expect much more from me, and found me a chair to sit on and placed it in the shade because they knew these white people were allergic to the sun or something. They made me understand that they were sending for someone who could speak English, and soon a young schoolboy showed up. I explained that I was out of gas, and he explained that nobody in town had any. But he went over to the local Paramount Chief, who was also the local member of parliament, and happened to be heading to Bo pretty soon. Next thing I knew a black Mercedes with a flag fluttering from the hood pulled up and I got in the back seat with the Paramount Chief. He asked "So how could such an intelligent person as yourself run out of gas in this village?" He had a point, since I was no more than 30 miles from my home, but I explained the situation, new bike and all, and not only that it was January 1st and the Magburaka gas station was closed for New Years. Anyway we had an interesting conversation all the way to Bo, where he let me off at the first open gas station. I'm going to leave the story there, but you should get the idea this was a long day.

As hard as it may be to believe, this kind of friendliness was typical of the entire three years I spent there. And it probably explains my liberal attitudes.

My biggest shock was not in going to West Africa, it was in returning to Canada. Although everything was more or less as I had left it, everything was also different. Am I imagining things, or did Canadians start complaining a lot about nothing while I was away? Example of complaining about nothing, how about this one which I occasionally hear. Those Indians are taking our land. First of all, before we get into whose land it actually is, did you know Canada, with only 3.2 people per sq. km. has more land than almost any country on Earth? Sierra Leone has 80 people per sq. km., and you could fit it into Canada 360 times. If Canada had Sierra Leone's population density, we would have about 800 million people, and probably less complaining.

I would like to introduce S.E. Rogie, the Sierra Leonean version of Gordon Lightfoot. This is a nice video with still scenes of Sierra Leone of today, not 40 years ago. I can tell it's a little more crowded and has about a thousand times the number of motorcycles. That is one big change I personally can relate to. My motorcycle's licence plate was NT 183, meaning the 183rd motor vehicle of any type ever registered to the Tonkolili district in the Northern province.

The picture is from Freetown Sierra Leone, 1970. The old City Hotel (on the left) has since burned down. The only motorcycle in the picture is mine in the bottom right corner.

Motorcycling: Road Hazards

We have been to quite a few funerals this month, and while it is always a sad event, it does give you a chance to meet members of your extended family who you might not have met before. The last time, many people seem to have heard of Mary Ann's scooter, and were asking us questions about it. And because some of the questions were kind of thought provoking I decided to do a write up.

First question: What about pot holes on a scooter with 13 inch wheels that is also capable of 140 kilometers per hour speed. This is a better response than what I gave verbally.

You do need to avoid potholes, more than you would in a car, and maybe more than a motorcycle with regular sized wheels. But on a two wheeled vehicle, you are always checking out the road surface, as that is one of your greatest hazards. Potholes are only one of the hazards, so is debris in the road: tire treads, big rocks, train tracks, streetcar tracks, gravel, leaves, ice, water puddles, dead animals, and oil puddles. In fact there are so many things to watch out for that I am always scanning the road surface. I swerve around anything suspicious even just a stain on the road. And I try to do this while also paying attention to traffic. But I never ever talk on the phone while riding, and rarely even attempt to talk to my passenger so at least I'm not too distracted.

A motorcycle or scooter is a single track vehicle, cutting in half your chance of hitting a pothole. Also your eyes are lined up on the track, meaning you don't need to sacrifice any mental brain power to compute the path of an off centre wheel. And don't fool yourself, even if you are doing it unconsciously, your brain has to work, and work harder to compute the path of the tire that is not lined up with the eye. Also helping you is a high viewpoint, and a vehicle that is quite good at dodging around, if you practice. And since I try to miss everything on the road, I do get a fair amount of practice. Also, with such a narrow vehicle you can move around quite a lot without sideswiping a car next to you.

If you do hit a pothole or other road hazard, in spite of all your efforts, surprisingly the scooter is usually not damaged unless it is a real big hazard, and those may damage cars too. Anyway, just because you hit a pothole you are not necessarily going to crash. The motorcycle or scooter has a fair amount of stability, and unless you are thrown off, will likely keep going. Many two wheeled vehicles have kept going even without the driver.

I had one incident in my first year of motorcycling that permanently tuned me in to road hazards. I was riding my Honda 175 on a bush road in Sierra Leone, probably at about 70 kph, when I hit a big rock sticking about six inches out of the road. I don't remember exactly what the rock looked like, but I do remember what happened to the motorcycle and me. The front wheel went over and bounced up in the air a bit, then came down just when the rear wheel hit the rock. For some reason the rear suspension could not absorb the hit, and so the back of the bike went high up in the air, and so did I because the seat is right over the rear wheel. The bike rode along with only the front wheel touching the ground. I was no longer sitting on the seat, in fact the only contact I had with the bike was my hands on the handlebars, where I was just about upside down, doing some kind of handstand like a stunt rider. I came really close to going right over the front, but I hovered there for what seemed like a minute, then I fell back down onto the seat of the bike. I pulled over to the side of the road and stopped to catch my breath and figure out what was going on. The rim of the wheel was dented in. I actually don't remember if the tire was flat right then, but later on I had to patch the tube, so maybe it caused a slow leak. I was an impressionable 21 years old at the time, and I learned something valuable from my lucky break.

The Picture: I photoshopped two of my pictures together from Sierra Leone. I'm in the rainy season, but the rest of the road is in the dry season.

Why Does Religious Right Oppose Liberal Do-Gooders?

What I want to know is, why some religious extremists oppose liberals who only want to make the world a better place? Instead, most religious factions seem to have has thrown in with the Republican Party, while bleeding heart liberal do-gooders seem to have picked the Democrats. There are exceptions, but without religious support, the Republicans would not have much chance of being elected.

It should be possible for all thoughtful, caring people to just get along. After all, Christians believe in "Love your neighbour", and they do nice things for poor countries, like setting up orphanages, building schools and giving out medicines. I don't think they like war any more than other people do.

What are the basic differences in the religious extremist philosophy, and a liberal do-gooder philosophy?

A liberal do-gooder would believe that by using our intellect, we can improve the world, and not just by giving charity to individuals. For example, they believe we can eliminate poverty, sickness, racism, ignorance, crime, war, overpopulation and pollution. And they think they can achieve world wide democracy and human rights. Liberal do gooders do not worship money as their God, and are not racist or nationalists. But they still worship something, and what they worship is the idea of perfecting the world through human reason. In other words, they worship themselves.

The Christians who oppose liberal ideas are people who love God more than they love any living person. They believe God takes care of their needs in this life as well as the afterlife, and believe God performs personal miracles for them. Everything from winning a football game to getting a little extra cash for the monthly expenses. That, to me, is extremely religious. But not necessarily Republican.

One reason Christians oppose liberal do gooders might be because they have a suspicion that the liberals are insulting God's creation. Since God is smarter than us how can we improve on His creation?

Another reason Extremist Christians oppose liberals, is if liberals ever do make Earth a better place, they are undermining both the appeal of Heaven and the prediction of the second coming of Jesus. If Jesus comes soon (as he is supposed to), any work done to save the planet is a waste of effort anyway.

There is a third answer for the split between liberal do-gooders and fundamentalists. By merely thinking about how things work, liberals are going to be questioning religion. And sure enough, many liberals think that religion is partly to blame for many ills of the world!

Religious people do seem to oppose almost every attempt by liberals to make the world a better place. In most cases, these liberal works are seen as immoral. The prime example is Communism, where godless people decided to eliminate poverty and class divisions to make the world "perfect". What happened to Communism was that it became a nightmare and it ultimately was doomed. There will be the same fate for socialists and liberals, according to religious extremists.

There are other liberal initiatives, such as universal health care, which turn out to be against religion. Health care interferes with life, for example, abortion and euthanasia. Stem cell research is a sin. Even population control is a sin. The religious idea being that every life is precious to God and no mortal should interfere.

So no cooperation on getting rid of poverty, and no population control. What else are liberals doing that is opposed to fundamentalism? Apparently, eliminating ignorance and giving universal non-religious education is also sinful. Godless education resulted in the "Theory of Evolution", asserting that there is no difference between humans and chimps. Then public education teaches us that all religions are equal. Religious extremists oppose this kind of public education, although they support education if it is centred on their religious point of view. According to Christians, the sin of knowledge actually caused the original fall of man, when he bit into the fruit of the "tree of knowledge".

Now we come to the peace movement. You may think all Christians could support the liberal do gooders in the peace movement, with the many pro-peace teachings of Jesus. Well, the religious extremists are in favour of peace, but not if it involves appeasement of non-Christians. For example, they generally support Israel's claim to Palestinian land, because it is written that God promised it to them. And most peace activists call for Israel to withdraw from the illegal occupation without regard to God's intentions. It's international law (The UN) vs. God's Law. You can guess which one the do-gooders want. Religious extremists generally supported the wars in Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, and in many cases referred to them as a holy war.

Another point about war, do Christians really love their enemies? Yes they do, but it is with the purpose of to converting them to Christianity. Christians can love the person while hating that person's ideas.

What else have we got to differ on? The liberal cause of global warming for example, is just another case of godless science. Assuming the scientists were already wrong on evolution, it is no big deal for the religious right to ignore them on climate change.

Homosexuality is a sin, but liberals don't believe in sin, so they are in favour of gayness. Here the split is between freedom to do what you want (liberal idealism) vs. obey God (religious ideas of evil)

Religious fundamentalists think that making the world a better place is really an insult to a God who made the world the way He intended it. The more liberals try to improve the world, it seems like the worse it gets, so we might as well accept that God alone is in charge. While liberal do-gooders want to make the world a better place, the main aim of a religious fundamentalist is is to gain as many souls for Jesus as possible before the end of times, and let God take care of making the world a better place through flood or Armageddon.

Motorcycling: Advice for Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt has a collection of nice motorcycles, and was out riding a few weeks ago, and had a little accident. According to various sources on the internet, Brad was being hounded by paparazzi, then tried to squeeze his bike between two cars and hit his handlebar on one then fell down and broke his favourite bike. He was scared that Angelina Jolie (his wife) would find out because she thinks they are too dangerous. Now he's in Japan for some reason, still being hounded by paparazzi, and while he's there, he's looking for a replacement bike. I guess he broke something on his favourite bike, because it didn't look too damaged to me in this video.

Brad likes riding bikes because as he says, when he's on his bike, "he's just another asshole on a motorcycle" instead of a celebrity. Hold on just a minute Brad, I'm just another asshole on a motorcycle too. Except that I'm not married to Angelina Jolie, I never dumped Jennifer Aniston, I don't have paparazzi following me while I'm riding and I don't have millions of dollars to buy another bike if I drop one. But one thing I do have tons of, which I dispense freely, is advice. So hear me out.

If you are afraid that Angelina is going to ream you out about falling down on your motorcycle, you have several options. I'm guessing it's too late for you to go crawling back to Jennifer Aniston. She's a girl who would not only approve of you riding a bike, but she would ride on the back with you. So let's say you're stuck with Angelina. You could try to convince her motorcycles are not dangerous.

Incidentally, it would help, if on your next bike purchase, you do not get a "suicide clutch". Modern production motorbikes have neat safety features like non-suicide clutches.

But even with a decent clutch, this PR campaign is going to be very difficult if she thinks that everybody rides a motorcycle like she did in Tomb Raider. You don't drive like that, I hope.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6Cyth4L8Pw&NR=1 (at 2:57 and 3:58)

One thing I just don't get, how could Angelina have become such a wimp since she was Lara Croft? I could have married her just for that movie alone, but I guess when you actually marry her you find out that she was never Lara Croft in the first place, and she is some total other personality who is scared of motorcycles. So that's why Hollywood marriages don't last.

Another tactic you could try is this. I was overhearing some guy talking to an employee at a motorcycle shop, and I found out that he had bought a motorcycle from them, but left the bike at the shop for safekeeping and so that his wife would never find out that he had bought a bike. It just might work, especially if the shop could take care of the registration and the insurance bills, and act like they were just renting it to you. Anyway, food for thought, Brad.

The next bit of advice is on selecting a new bike. You're right in thinking that some of the best custom bike builders on Earth are Japanese. I was just looking up Chicara Nagata. His bikes sell for nice round number, one million dollars each, that way you don't need to mess with the spare change.

http://www.ridelust.com/japanese-steampunk-motorcycles-for-millionaires/
http://www.hot-dock.co.jp/title1.htm
http://zero-eng.com/

Anyhow, any of the above would do nicely. But here's another idea that might kill two birds with one stone. Get a Suzuki Burgman 400. It has no suicide clutch, it's automatic. It's perfect for zipping around town and escaping paparazzi, in fact I've never had one get within a mile of me on the Burgman. Secondly, you might be able to persuade Angelina that it is safe. After all, it's just a scooter! Just don't mention the top speed of 140 kph.